John F. Kennedy's Address to the American People on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

On October 22, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered a televised address to the American public regarding the former Soviet Union’s military presence in Cuba. Kennedy reports the presence offensive missile sites presumably intended to launch a nuclear attack against Western nations. The President characterizes this as move on the part of the U.S.S.R. as an imminent threat to American security and lays out his proposed course of action.

This
urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base by the presence of these large, long range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas, in flagrant and deliberate defiance of the Rio Pact of 1947, the traditions of this Nation and hemisphere, the joint resolution of the 87th Congress, the Charter of the United Nations, and my own public warnings to the Soviets on September 4 and 13.

Our own strategic missiles have never been transferred to the territory of any other nation under a cloak of secrecy and deception; and our history unlike that of the Soviets since the end of World War II demonstrates that we have no desire to dominate or conquer any other nation or
impose our system upon its people.

... this sudden,
clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country...

For many years both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployed strategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the precarious
status quo which insured that these weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge.

... this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil -- is a deliberately
provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country... if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe.

Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any
substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.

This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base -- by the presence of these large, long range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction -- constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas, in
flagrant and deliberate defiance of the Rio Pact of 1947...

Any
hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed -- including in particular the brave people of West Berlin -- will be met by whatever action is needed.

He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the
abyss of destruction by returning to his government's own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba -- by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis -- and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions.

This... is a deliberately provocative and
unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe.

For many years both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployed strategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the
precarious status quo which insured that these weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge.

I have directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any
eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned in continuing this threat will be recognized.

Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be
convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace.